03/05/2014:

I woke up and it hurt to bend my knee.  I didn’t think too much of it and went to work cause I would be sitting in my chair most of the day.

By the time it came to leave work, I could barely walk on it.

By the 10PM, I couldn’t put weight on it, and I could barely get in and out of the Lazy Boy.  I needed the help of crutches to get around the house. I would have fell flat on my face in the hallway if my dad wasn’t there to catch me one time because I put weight on the bad knee by accident and the pain was so bad that I could move anything to fix my balance and I started falling forward and he just grabbed the back of my shirt.  Once I stopped seeing stars, I made it the rest of the way to the bed, very hard to get into bed and very hard to position my leg so that I wasn’t havn’t any pain at all.  The Oxycodone wasn’t even touching my knee pain…  My dad finally suggested putting a pillow under my knee to slightly bend it up, and that worked to stop most of the pain, but any slight movements throughout the night woke me up in pain.

The cause of the knee pain?  Probably not walking right because of my hurt back, and I hurt my back because of my shingles…. Domino affect.

03/04/2014.  Happy Mardi Gras…

Even though it was one of the coldest Mardi Gras in my lifetime, I wasn’t going to miss it this year.  Last year I spent Mardi Gras Day in the Hospital.  I missed all the major Mardi Gras Parades, because I spent a week in the hospital due to a fever and infection.  I wasn’t going to miss Mardi Gras again!  My dad and I went to Zulu and he caught three Coconuts, and then we walked back down St. Charles to 4th street and caught Rex.  It was a cold and wet day.  We didn’t stay for the truck parades, catching Rex was good enough to me, we wanted to go home and get warm and dry…

Going back and forth to all the Mardi Gras Parades, I walked 7 miles.  Even though my back hurt when it was stiff, there was no way I was missing Mardi Gras!

03/01/2014:

So I didn’t let the hurt back keep me from the Mardi Gras Parades.  Sure it hurt to get into the car, sure it hurt to walk.  I just took small steps at first and as I loosened up I could walk quicker and in less pain.  However, during the parades I would have to keep moving around unless I would start tensing up again and it would hurt to move around again.  Bending over to pick up beads, cups, and other trinkets off the ground was completely out of the question.  However I was still able to make the festivities.

I was standing on the Neutral Ground on the Street Car Tracks on Canal St. near Jefferson Davis for Endymion…

02/27/2014:

So just trying to keep from sitting on my left butt cheek, I have been favoring the right side of my body.  Needless to say my body did not like that at all!

I was simply bending over to pick up my tea off of a chair and I felt a sharp pain shoot up my lower back which just immobilized me.  After a few seconds I stood back up and had another pain shoot up my lower back.

Oh what a journey, this never stops!

So on 02/18/2014:  I noticed a small rash on my butt area and thought it was a simple rash…  I did take a cold shower the day before since there was no  hot water left half way through my shower and I figured it was the body wash not completely washing off of me as it more like sticks to you in cold water.  I let it go figuring it would heal up, by Thursday the pain was becoming just a tad nauseating and by Friday I left the office a little before 4 because I couldn’t deal with the pain any more…

After getting another close up of the rash it appears to have blisters like that of Shingles.  I discovered this around 5PM Friday evening.  I did some research and started myself back on my Acyclovir every 6 hours and also along wit some Phenerghan and Percocet.  This did an OK job of minimizing the pain on Friday but I also had a hard time sleeping Friday night because of the pain and any little movement would wake me up with pain.

Saturday was the worst I didn’t move much at all.  Towards the end of the day I did take a warm Oatmeal bath after some further research and this did soothe the pain a good bit, and I did get on the computer for my regular Saturday night gaming, but I quit toward the end because the pain started becoming too much to continue sitting, off to bed I went.

Sunday I woke up and felt a bit better, I didn’t feel the stinging pain with every small movement.  I got up walked around the house a little bit, ate at the table and sat in the LazyBoy and watch some TV.  Much better than yesterday.  I finished up with an Oatmeal bath again to sooth some more and then off to bed I went…

Monday was a little lest painful than Sunday.  I am staying on top of my Acyclovir 4 times a day.  I am trying to stop the pain pills so I didn’t take any when I woke up.  About to jump in another nice warm Oatmeal bath and just relax 🙂

I’ll keep you updated as always 🙂

12/06/2013:  My 4th Wedding Anniversary, what a way to celebrate my wife said… She’ll be holding this over my head!

10:00: I am up.  Time to get this port out of my chest…

10:30: I shave my face and head as I don’t want to bother with a hairnet or anything else for the surgery, and I want my smooth look again, and I have not touched it since the radiation started because of the skin being raw from around my neck from the radiation.

10:50: Into the shower I go, I scrub down with Antibacterial Dial Soap as instructed for the layer of protection against infection…

11:05: Out the shower.

11:15: All dressed… Time to head to the surgery center with my wife and mom.

11:30: We arrive at the surgery center, I sign in and we sit and wait.

11:50: I am called to the back.  Brittany takes my vitals has me get into a lovey surgery gown, and on a wing and a prayer gets my IV started just as she was about to give up on her first stick on me.

12:00: The doc comes and sees me before the procedure, we go over everything quickly as its a fairly simple, slice me open, pull out the port, and superglue me back together along with some steri strips..

12:15: I am given a nice little cocktail into my IV, I don’t feel it affect me too much as they roll me into the operating room.  The nurse tells me no worries, she will give me some more…

1:00: I am done with the surgery.  I wake up, never remember falling asleep…  I asked them how it went and how bad was the bleeding, they said everything went fine and I was going to be rolled back to the room and just watched for about a half hour before preparing to leave.

1:15: The doc comes and see me again and tells me how everything went and wished me the best on my journey through this rough patch…

2:00: We are home.  I am still feeling the effects of the anesthesia, but sure enough you will find me by a computer just looking at a few different things, not doing any real work, just some easy work 😛

5:00: Supper time.  BBQ hamburgers stuffed with cheese inside, yummy.

6:00: I just sit go lay in bed and take the rest of the day easy watching TV with my wife, as it is our anniversary, and if I don’t spend any time with her today, I won’t hear the end of it…  To bad this time is half in it half out of it, as I am half watching TV, half dozing off, half talking to her, just recovering…

7:00: I doze off completely.

9:30: I am awake, back to watching some more TV and some more talking.  I am not in the mood to be on a computer or doing anything else, so just relaxing for me…

11:30: Goodnight!

11:59: Another wonderful day done!

11/13/2013:

8:30: Awaken by a phone call from a client, I take care of that quickly and I am up, can’t really go back to sleep.

9:15: I help my wife take off for school.

9:30: I take care of a few things from home.

10:30: Shower Time!

11:00: I head to my office to meet with a client.

11:50: The client gets to my office, I reset the password on their computer using a boot disk.

12:00: My wife calls me she has a flat on the middle median of the interstate at the I-10/I-610 split, so I finish up with the client so I can go help her.

12:15: I get to where my wife is at, right in the middle of the median where the traffic splits to go to I-10 or I-610.  I help her change her spare tire, stopping many times in between to catch my breath and just rest.  I don’t have the strength I used to, but no one else is going to change it…

1:00: We head on over to Sears Auto Center.

1:10: We get there and order to get 2 new rear tires, and for them to check her alignment since the alignment is still under warranty, and may as well since they are going to have it in their possession anyway.

1:25: We leave and head on over to EJGH, I am pretty much exhausted, but I am doing ok since this is my last treatment!

1:30: I check in.

1:33: I get called to the back.  They set me up, the machine goes around me, hits me from two angles and then I am done with the treatment.

1:40:  I keep my mask to hang on my wall at the office, and they also give me a certificate of completion.  I am done.  I’ll check back with them in a month…

2:00: My wife and I head over to my office.

2:20: We get to the office, and back with some administration work I start, catching up as I haven’t been here for a few days.

6:00: The car is ready so we head over to pick it up.

6:30: We are back home.  I eat some supper, a good Italian dish that a friend of the family has made.

8:00: I am laying in bed exhausted.  I do a few things on my laptop, but mainly just watch TV.

10:00: ZzZzZzZzZzZzZzZzZz……….

11:59: Another day done!

10/08/2013:

9:00: I am up…

9:05: I bring Buster outside, and take a walk around the back yard.

9:15: I head back in.

9:30: I jump on the computer and take care of a few minor things.

10:15: My wife heads off to school…

10:45: I jump in the shower.

10:55: I jump out the shower.

11:00: I jump into my parent’s car and take that over to the Yenni Center for treatment.

11:11: I check in.

11:14: I am called to the back.

11:17: I lay on the table, same procedure as yesterday…  Today they do some measurements with a device placing it on my chest and on my back during the procedure.  Probably measuring the amount of radiation that is hitting me to make sure everything is within specs.

11:30: I am done, I am shown to a patient room where I will meet with Dr. Page once a week during my Radiation Treatment which will go on for 5 weeks…

12:00: I see Dr. Page and he goes over everything real quick with me.  He tells me he likes the treatment plan, and is very satisfied with the amount (little) that my heart is getting and is OK with the amount(a little more) that my lungs are getting.  He is concentrating on my neck, around my chest and right below my heart, wherever the pet scan masses were showing.

12:30: I am out of the Doctor’s office.  I head on over to my office to try to get back into the normal flow of things, but this won’t happen completely to all of these treatments are over with…

12:45: I am at my office.

5:00: I head home.

5:15: I grab a bite to eat.

6:00: I sit back and watch some TV. ZzZzZzZz I take a nap in the process.

8:30: I am awake, I jump on my computer and check out a few things.

10:00: To bed I go, laying in bed on my laptop and watching TV.

11:00: I drift to sleep… ZzZzZzZ

11:59: Another day done..

10/07/2013:

So today starts radiation treatment, oh joy…

10:00: I am up.

10:05: Normal routine, let Buster outside.

10:30: I jump into the shower.

10:40: I am out of the shower.

10:50: I am dressed and ready to go.  Both of my parents are off today, so they are driving me to my treatment today…

10:55: We head out the door.

11:05: I get to the Yenni Center and East Jefferson General Hospital.  Rita at the front desk gives me a card with my name and barcode on the back of the card.  She show me how to check myself in by scanning the barcode with the barcode scanner on the front desk and check that my name pops up on the screen.  I then go take my seat watching the fish in the fish tank while we wait…

11:10: They call my name and I head to the back.

11:15: They show me everything and lay me down on the table.  They then hook a mask over my face that was made last week by stretching a thin plastic netting over my face that hardened to the shape of my face.  This is to hold my head back during the procedure so that I do not move my head and get my mouth or other parts of my body in the way of the radiation field that is supposed to be treating my neck.  The nurse gives me a ring to hold on my stomach to keep my hands in place.  They then use the lasers to line me up with the two tattoo dots that I have on my chest that I got last week during the imaging processes.  Once lined up and the table raised to the proper number of 89 for me they then walk out the room closing the big door behind them.  I am the only one in the radiation treatment room and they can view everything through cameras.  The machine starts to move around me to line up the XRay machine over me and the receiver under me, it first takes a quick XRay to make sure I am lined up just right, and then adjusts the table I am on just right then it.  It then turns back so that the Radiation Source is over me.  You then hear the gears moving in the source to close off everything but the gap in which they want the radiation to pass through and hit me in only certain areas on the right chest and neck.  I then hear a clicking noise behind me that is a relay operating that activates the Radiation and hits me at that spot for 30 seconds.  Then the gears move again to move the opening to left side of my chest and neck, then the click of the relay closing for 30 seconds and then the click of the relay opening to stop the radiation.  Then the Radiation Source is spun all the way around so that it is under me and the same process happens again, the gears move to tune in where they want the radiation, I hear the click of the relay and the tone of the Radiation Source when active, and then the click of the relay opening.  Then the gears moving again to reposition itself for the last shot and then again the click of the relay and the tone for 30 seconds and then the click of the relay opening again and stopping the radiation and then the machine moves around me back into its beginning position.   At which point the nurses come in and take the mask off my head, the ring from my hands, and the knee pad from under my knees.  That’ it, I am done.

11:30: I put my medical tag around my neck again and head out to meet my parents to head back home.  It takes a few extra minutes the first time for setup and making sure everything is right, they said the as we get into a routine the setup process will be the same but happen much quicker.

11:45: I head back home.

12:00: I head out in one of my parents cars to meet a client.  My van is out of commission with it leaking when it rains, too much of a possibility of mold growing from when it leaks when it rains.

12:15: I arrive at the client and do a quick walk through. We realize that half of what wants to happen is already setup on a separate network, so we do not have to create that separate network.  The next step is to figure out what is needed to hang 2 large screen TVs to act as advertising panels and what is needed to run them.  We run through all the specs, and I tell him that I will email him an estimate once I can compute everything and contact a few dealers for what I need.

1:00: Back home…  I eat a Hamburger PoBoy.  Good stuff, I have a great appetite 🙂

1:30: I head over to my office, to check things out.

1:45: At my office.  Time to catch up on some more administrative things, mail, bills, oh joy…

5:30: Time to head home…

6:00: I am home, grab a bite to eat, then to my computer at home to finish up some things I was working on at the office, but at home.

8:00: Done with that for now.  I take a break and play some Call of Duty 2 😛

10:00: Done playing for now.  I move to my room, lay on my bed, and continue doing a few minor thing with my laptop while watching TV…

11:00: Enough for me, just TV till I fall asleep..

11:15: Zzzzzzz

11:59: Another day gone 🙂 24 more more treatments to go…

09/19/2013:

6:00: I am awaken for my normal vitals and pills…

6:15: I am back asleep.

8:30: I am up.  My dad is getting ready to go have some medical test done himself.

9:10: My mom gives me my Lovenox Injection, and then off to testing the head.

9:30: I jump in the bath/shower…  Last time I’ll be taking one of these, back to a regular shower tomorrow!

10:00: On my computer at the house checking a few emails before heading over to the office.

10:30: My wife heads off to school, and I finish getting ready to head to the office.

10:40: I am out of the house.  Since both of my parents are home, and they are together, that leaves a car home, so I take their car to my office.

11:00: I get to my office.  I go downstairs and pick up a few packages that were dropped off for me.

11:15: After two trips downstairs I have all my packages in my office.  Some nice driftwood to add to my aquarium, only problem is its drifts, and doesn’t sink, lol.  Oh well, will have to let it soak for a few days to let it sink on it’s own.  Once it does, I’ll take the Java moss that I have and partially wrap the driftwood.  Just preparing it for some red cherry shrimp that I want to start keeping.  It’s a small tank, too small for a good fish display, so it’ll work for starting up some Red Cherry Shrimp production for a pond and other aquariums I plan on bringing online in the next year or two…

12:00: Time for me to head on home and get to my Doctor’s Appointment…

12:15: I get home, throw some plants into my pond in the backyard that arrived in the mail yesterday, just been sitting at the office since I didn’t get the packages from downstairs yesterday.

12:20: I throw on some Lidocaine cream to start the numbing process so I don’t feel the prick of the needle when they access my port.

12:30: Off to Tulane we go.

12:45: I check in at the front desk.

12:55: We are shown to the back for my appointment.

1:15: The nurse attempts to access my port, accessing is easy, but no pull back, after a few attempts we decide it will be easier to get the blood from my arm since my veins are starting to return…

1:20: Dr. Safah walks in and starts going over the results from the PET/CT Scan.  Dr. Safah was overall very pleased with the results of the PET/CT scan and is ready to move onto the final stage of her treatment which is the Radiation Therapy.  This scan looked better than any of my other scans.  2 small areas of activity were detected, but they are unsure if this is just normal uptake of glucose, or inflammation from different variables since the amounts were so small or disease left over.  To be safe, these areas are going to be radiated with radiation therapy.  This will include my chest and my neck.  Since I had large masses in my chest, they were planning on hitting these areas anyway with radiation to shrink the size of the scar tissue left from the tumors since the tumor cell structure will not just disappear on their own.  So radiation was already in the plans, just now we are going to use it to also make sure that there is no left over disease along with tissue shrinkage, which they tell me is a common practice.  The radiation treatment would take place 5 days a week, for 4 weeks.  This process can be tiring and cause fatigue.  The radiation treatment could start as early as next or the following week.  Test Results Can Be Seen Here

2:00: Back to taking blood, the nurse tries to stick me, but she has no luck.  She wants to call another nurse in, but I offer to have my mom do it, since she is a CRNA.  She sticks me and gets it.  We fill up a half a tube, but then it stops flowing.  She thinks she blew the vein, so time to stick me again.  She gets me a second time, we fill up the second tube half way and it stops again, I say lets try switching tubes, and sure enough as soon as we switch, the third tube fills up with no issues.  The issue with the first two tubes were probably the air being pulled out of the line on the butterfly needles before it gets to the tubes.

2:45: We are done, and out of the office.

3:15: We are home.

3:30: My dad and I go in the backyard and construct a fence to keep the dogs away from the back fence where a the back yard neighbor’s huge dog likes to run at the fence and jump in it when they are near it, sooner or later that big dog is going to come through the fence because he has been knocking boards loose.  So this fence will keep them away from that other fence and keep that other dog from beating up the fence as much.

4:00: We are done with that project and head inside.

4:30: My wife and mom head off to the store to pick up some chicken wing sauces since we are going to have chicken wings tonight.  We picked them up from Sam’s on Sunday, and now they just need to be cooked.

4:45: I start working on replacing the screen on my wife’s phone because the digitizer has started messing up on items on the bottom of her screen.

6:00: My wife and mom return with the sauces.  Most importantly, they have brought Buster back home. 🙂

6:15: My dad starts cooking the food, and I look up a video online about the screen replacement since I have run into a stopping point and can’t figure out the next step since there are no screws left to undo to remove the screen itself to run a ribbon cable behind it.

6:25: My wife and mom are off to CVS and Walgreens for some items.

6:30: I figure out the screen and finally get it popped off.  I then thread the new screen cable and put the screen back and the covering back.  I then reassemble the whole phone, and it works as good as new…

8:00: Supper is ready, chicken is fresh off the BBQ Pit.  My wife and mom get home at the same time too.  My dad mixes up the sauces on the chicken.

9:00: In bed, watching TV.  Buster just laying on the floor.

10:00: Vitals and then ZzZzZz shortly after…

11:59: Another day over with 😛

09/18/2013:

DAY 100 🙂  PET/CT Scan Day!

5:30: Woken up for regular vitals and medicine and the darn Lovenox shot…

5:50: Back in bed, attempting to rest a little more, but that never happens.

7:15: I am up, time for my shower before heading off to the hospital.

7:55: My dad and I are headed to Tulane.  Traffic Heavy on the I-10, so we get off at Airline/Tulane and take that way in.

8:30:  My dad drops me off by the emergency room, as that’s quicker that waiting to circle the parking garage, find a spot, then park, and then make our way in.

8:35: I check in.

8:40: My dad arrives.

8:45: The nurse takes us downstairs to the tractor trailer that has the unit inside, my dad goes into the Waiting room to wait…

8:55: They take my blood sugar, 104…

9:00: They inject me with the Radioactive Glucose.  This glucose gets picked up by the cells in my body, cancer cells rapidly divide and use up plenty of glucose, so the radioactive glucose will show up on the PET/CT scan.  They have me just kick my feet up and relax for an hour in that chair…

10:00:  Time for me to lay down on the moving table that will slide me in and out of the machine.  It is very easy to dose off and fall asleep while going through the machine…

10:35: I am done with the scan, and out the trailer I go…

10:45: I take a few pics of the trailer, and we walk back to the parking garage.

11:00: In the car heading to get something to eat.

11:20: We pull into Juicy Lucy’s for lunch.  My dad and I both get a stuffed cheese, bacon and buffalo wing sauce burger.  Hmm, first time I have been in a restaurant since before the transplant…

12:00: We are stuffed!

12:30: My dad drops me off at the office before heading home.

1:00: Back to getting started on some lovely work.  I get an email from a client that my chemo brain must have messed up something, as I misspelled a person’s name and didn’t apply one permission to allow them to access files they need to do their work…  I resolve that issue first.

1:20: I have an issue where a client is getting email kick back’s, it just started meaning one of their computers on the network is infected, it doesn’t necessarily have to be one of their computers because they do provide access to other tenants and visitors to the building, so one of these other machines could have sent spam out and got their IP blacklisted, so I start working on that…

2:00: Done with those few things, I start checking on some things around the office…

3:00: I decide now is the best time if any to update my blog.  I took pics today, so may as well get those posted!

3:45: Back to doing small things around my office…

6:30: My mom comes and pick’s me up from the office and brings me home.

7:00: Just watching TV with my dad at home, relaxing.

7:15: I eat a Wendy’s Fried Spicy Chicken Sandwich.

8:00: Just watching some more TV.

8:30: I am exhausted.  I have been up since 5:30, and getting up that early is not normal for me.

8:45: ZzZzZzZzZzZz….

11:59: Another day gone…

09/11/2013:

5:30: Vitals, oh joy…

9:30: I am up. I get on the computer and start doing some administrative work, checking on a few things and making some changes to some internal network configurations.

12:00: I take a break, toast 2 bagels and butter them and have my brunch 😛

12:30: Back on the computer, updating my blog…

1:45: Back to some internal housekeeping for HFH.  Administrative work is never any fun…

4:00: Take a break and a quick walk outside.

4:30: Back on the computer checking up on some compliances for a client.

6:00: Done working for today…

6:15: Supper.

7:00: Relaxing in my room with some TV.

10:00: Medicine, Lovenox shot, and Vitals, fun as always!

10:30: ZzZzZzZzZzZz…

11:59: Another quick day done.

08/22/2013:

5:30: Vitals and Injection, oh joy!

6:00: ZzZzZz

9:34: I am awaken by a phone call.  A client needs a temp admin password for a vendor to install some software for a new label maker printer at the office.

9:40: I am at my computer in my room remoting into the server to create the temp admin password, and call that temp admin password back into the office.

10:00: Back to some work….

12:00: I get this crazy idea to go work on my bike, so I go take it out the back shed.  I first replace the seat as it fell off when someone borrowed my bike a while back…

12:30: Seat on, now just need to pump up the tires.

1:00: I ride my bike 2 blocks down and that’s enough for me for today, I turn around and ride the blocks back to the house.

1:30: I am done putting the bike away and the tools I used to fix it…

2:00: Shower time.

2:30: Back on my computer checking on a few things and just doing some work.

5:00: Another day of work pretty much over with just finalizing some things here and there…

6:00: Another injection, oh joy!

6:15: Supper…

7:00: Just watching TV….

10:00: To my room I go, I am tired…  I turn on some TV in there, but fall sleep soon after…

10:30:ZzZzZzZz

11:59: Another day gone…

08/21/2013:

5:30: Up again for my Lovenox shot, oh joy… Oh vitals and pills too…

6:00: Back asleep!

10:00:  I get an email from a client who is having issues with her computer after I had fixed the issue.  It ran fine for me for a day on the test bench with no issues, and won’t stop blue screening for her.  I email her back saying I will look at the computer under a warranty repair.

11:00: Just working on a few items from home, checking on some product prices for clients and catching up on some administrative work.

12:00:  I grab a bite to eat out the fridge.

1:00: Back to work at my home PC.

2:30: The desktop is dropped off at my house to be looked at again.  I start troubleshooting it along with my wife’s gmaw’s computer.  Both are having blue screen and boot up issues.  I first run mem test on them as memory test are the most common reasons for constant blue screens.

4:00: Both PCs are still memtesting with no issues, I’ll let them run the rest of the night to just make sure…

6:00:  My wonderful evening Lovenox shot, oh joy, ouch 🙁

6:15: Supper…

7:00: Back in my room working on a few things, fun times!

9:00: Blah tired, and tired of sitting up in a chair, time for me to lay down.

10:30: ZzZzZzZ Wow sleeping and its early!

11:59: Another day gone gone gone…

08/20/2013:

5:30: Waken up for my normal vitals.

6:00: I get my Lovenox shot as I have bloodwork today around 9:00 which will give me 3 hours after the shot which the nurse wants to see my Lovenox level.

7:00: I finally fall back asleep.

8:00: I am up. I have to get ready.  I put on the Lidocane Cream on the port, and the Saran Wrap over the Cream, and my shirt over the Saran Wrap.

8:30: My mom gets home from work and I jump in the car and we head to Tulane.

8:50: We get to Tulane.  I check in and let them know that I need to get my bloodwork done as soon as possible so that it is as near to 3 hours as possible from, when the injection was given.

9:05: I complete the check in process and sent right to the back.

9:10: Weighed and vitals taking as normal.

9:20: They access my port, however the nurse is having issues getting a good blood return, so she gets a veteran nurse to come work on my line.  The veteran pumps the saline back and forth and starts to get something, but not enough, she puts some heprin in my line to help break down the clot or blockage…

9:40: They go to work pumping saline in and out and finally just as I start pointing to my arm for a needle to be used to try to get blood from my vein that hasn’t been used in a while because it disappeared, but has since reappeared and visible through the skin, the blood starts flowing out of the port and into their collection syringes.  They waste a syringe, and then take 2 additional syringes, one to fill my normal blood counts etc, and the other to look at my clotting abilities and lovenox levels.

10:00: We are done with the blood draw, my mom and I rush over to the admit desk so that I can check in for my ultrasound of my arm to look at the blood clot, as it was scheduled for 10:00.

10:10: I check in at the desk, and I sit to sign the monitors for consent and insurance purposes.

10:25: I am called to sign the digital paperwork.

10:30: My mom and I are headed up to the 4th floor, I give the paperwork to frontdesk and we have a seat.

10:40: I am called to the back, asked to take off my shirt and lay on the bed and the technician will be in shortly to scan my neck and arm.

10:50: The tech comes in and starts scanning my neck and arm.

11:15:  The scan is all done.  My mom and I head back downstairs to wait in the waiting room of the cancer center as my appointment is at 1:00.

11:30: We get back downstairs.  I eat some cookies we purchased at Greenburys.  2 Peanut Butter and 2 Chocloate Chip Cookies.  They are huge and rich, I fight to eat 3 of them, and just save the extra for later.

12:00: I walk down to infusion to check on my bloodwork, they say everything is fine and unaccess me.

12:15: Back in the waiting room.  I pull out my laptop and check on a few things.

12:45: The nurse comes and gets us in the waiting room, seeing that we are waiting anyway, may as well wait in the patient room.

12:55: I get my vitals taken and into the patient room we go.

1:30: Dr. Safah sees me.  She asks why am I so red in the face, I tell her its probably because I just sat up so quickly, she says she doesn’t think so and doesn’t like it, I tell her I have been feeling fine and every now and then my face does get real red, but no other symptoms.  She says other than that I look good.  I ask her when I can start eating meat again because of the gout thing, and she says she is not a gout expert, but she would wait a little longer, she said I should go see my internist about the gout issue, she takes a look at my foot and says its still a lil swollen, but I don’t see it..  I ask her about the dogs, and she says I must still wait to after the Pet Scan, day 100 before considering having the dogs come back in the house, to let my immune system build itself up a little more.  Other than that she says everything is fine, I can discontinue my infusion visits, and I don’t have to see her again till September 19, 2013, the day after my PET/CT Scan.  So everything checked out pretty well.

2:00: My mom and I are out of there.  I am a little hungry, so we head on over to Spitalies.  I get a Eggplant Parmesan PoBoy, great stuff!

2:30: My mom and I head out, we head over to my office, and she drops me off.

3:00: I am upstairs in my office.  Today is the 20th, meaning sales taxes are due, so I go ahead and run those reports and then log onto the websites and enter the results from the reports into the Louisiana and Jefferson Parish sites for Sales Taxes and Payments.

6:00: My dad comes over and picks me up from the office.

6:30: I am done with my work today.

7:00: I am home, supper time, I don’t eat too much I am still full from lunch…

8:00: In my room working on my computer following up with a few things.

10:00: Done with the computer, in bed just watching TV…

11:59: ZzZzZzZzZz… Another day gone 😛

08/19/2013:

9:30: I am up.

10:00: I am sitting at my computer in my room.  Following up with emails with clients and a VLAN setup that I will have to do for VOIP phones for a client.  So I start doing research on that pulling setups I have done in the past.

12:05: I get an email from a client who is having problems with quickbooks online.  They spoke to Quickbooks Support who had them install a program on their computer to do some scanning, and it only installed more trash.  I had to remove everything they installed because the program they installed to scan also installed 5 other unneeded malware programs.

1:00: I do a quick clean of it as I just did a complete clean not that long ago.

3:00: My mom gets home from work and I have her give me a ride to my office.

3:30: A client comes in and picks up their laptop.

6:00: My wife shows up to pick me up, just waiting on my business partner to show up to show him something before I leave.

6:30: Jamie shows up, I show him what I need done, and he actually does it right away, so  I watch him do it, then head on out with my wife.

6:45: My wife and I are heading home.

7:00: My wife and I are home!  Salmon for supper.

7:15: I eat a little Salmon, I am getting tired of fish and non meat food…

7:30: I am done eating, off to my room to follow up with a phone call from earlier.

8:00: It is the client with the slow computer with what I think is the failing hard drive.  The backup won’t completely restore without the computer shutting down and restarting on him.  He will give it another day or two, to try again, but its not looking good for the computer in one way or another.

9:00: Off the phone, and checking on a few other things online.

10:00: In bed, I am just tired.

11:00: ZzZzZzZz  Another early night for me.

11:59: Another day gone…

08/18/2013:

2:00: I finally decide to turn of the TV and go to sleep.

11:30: I am up.

12:00: I grab a bite to eat.

12:30: I am back in my room, just checking on emails and working on a few things.

1:00: I remote into a client’s machine and start working on an issue where he repetitively has malware making its way back onto his computer.  I check out some addons and programs installed, and there are a few programs that were all installed on the same day that, all weird programs, so I uninstall them on, then do a scan, and remove anything left over.  I then explain that one must be careful when installing software to read every next statement because a lot of times tag along software comes with the software installed, this tag along software is not what you want.

2:00: All done. with that issue.

2:30: I go outside for a little bit, then come inside and rest in the lazyboy while my room is being cleaned, just watching TV.

5:00: Bath/Shower Time…

6:30: Back at my computer in my room.

10:30: In bed, a little tired…

10:45: ZzZzZzZz…  I am out…

11:59: Another day gone…

08/17/2013:

1:00: ZzZzZzZz

6:00: Lovenox shot yipee, not, blah, vitals, and pill…

6:15: Back to sleep…

10:00: Awake I am.

10:15:  My dad is making banana pancakes for breakfast!  Yummy!

10:45: Off to work my wife is headed.

11:00: I am in my room working on a computer remotely.  The client thinks its a virus, but I think its a hardware issue since the problem returned 2 weeks since we worked on the computer the last time.  It’s slow to start off, then I do find a few infections, but no active ones that would be slowing the machine down.  I get the machine running quicker, but I warn the client that because I did a chkdsk last night and that found a few hard drive erros, that the hard drive is probably failing, but the client insists that it is not the hard drive.

1:00: The computer is running better for now, so they’ll take it, so I log off of it remotely.

1:15: I relax in the lazy boy while my parents do some cleaning and vacuuming of my room, since I shouldn’t be in there while they are cleaning.

3:00: They are done with their things and about to go to Mass, I am going to have my dad drop me off at the office.

3:15: My dad and I head for the office.

3:30: At the office, I am dropped off and off he drives.

3:45: I throw 2 desktops up on the work benches, and start working on them.  One likely has a bad hd, so I pull out the HD and put it into another computer, and it boots up with no issues, so definitely not the hard drive, but the motherboard or processor, as the ram tests out fine with no issues.  I let the client know to see if they want to purchase this extra pc with their hard drive or just backup the info off of the hard drive.The other computer is a computer I am rebuilding for a family member, so in goes the Windows XP Professional CD and the reformat and rebuild start.

4:45: My dad calls me wanting to know if I am ready to be picked up.  I check on the computer and everything is in position for me to continue to work on it remotely.

5:00: My dad arrives so I lock up and head down stairs and jump in the car.

5:15: Back home…

5:30: Lovenox injection in the stomach, oh boy!

6:00: More seafood, I finish off the shrimp from the previous night.

7:00: Just in the LazyBoy watching TV.  I don’t feel like doing much of anything else tonight.

7:30: I doze off…

10:00: I wake up, time for a bath/shower.

11:30: Back in my room, just laying in bed, relaxing, watching a movie on TV.

11:59: Another day done…

08/16/2013:

5:30: Lovenox and vitals.

5:45: Right back asleep…

10:00: My mom arrives home, she is my ride to the doctors today.  I am seeing a seeing a Deep Vein Thrombosis (DVT) specialist for the blood clot in my arm.

10:15: We head to Tulane.

10:36: I check in.

11:00: We are taken to the back where my vitals are taken.

11:15: The normal new patient review, drugs taking, and everything else with me going on for an overview.

11:30: The doctor comes in and we go over the whole history of the stem cell and the blood clot.  The doctor comes to the conclusion that I may have clotted more because I had an infection recently since I was on the Vancomycin and since blood just tends to clot easier when there is an infection, then that was the result of my blood clot in my arm worsening a little during that time, the time of the second ultrasound.

12:15: We are heading out of the office and back to the car.  Nice doctor.  They are going to run some blood test on me on Tuesday to get my Lovenox levels in my blood are along with a few other things.

12:45: We go to River Pond to pick up some fresh shrimp and crabs.  The crabs are already boiled and ready to go, the shrimp have just been caught today and we are going to boil half for supper and the other half are going to go into a shrimp etouffe.

1:00: We pick up some Shrimp Po Boys from Spitalies that we had ordered before we went to River Pond, Chuck comes outside and tells me hello and wishes me well.

1:15: Back home, and enjoying my Shrimp PoBoy.

2:00: My mom drops me off at the office going off on her errands.

2:15: At my desk getting back to the real work.  Catching up on some administrative stuff since I have been gone.

3:00: My wife arrives at the office with a computer she had picked up for me to work on, I go downstairs and put it on the hand truck and wheel it in the elevator and upstairs to take care of it.

6:00: Done doing various work around the office.  Gotta get home for my shot and the Saints game tonight.

6:30: Lovenox shot, oh joy!

6:45:I start eating some crabs.

7:00: Saints game.

7:30: The shrimp come out the pot and placed into a pan on the table.  I am still eating crabs, take a bit to eat a crab.

7:45: I crab shell gets the best of my thumb when I am trying to crack the leg area in half to get the crab meat out, OK, this will be my last crab for tonight…  Onto the shrimp I venture.

8:00: I am done eating for tonight.  I sit in the LazyBoy and watch the rest of the Saints game against the Raiders…

10:00: Game over.  I browse to see what else is on TV.  Pill and vital time too…

11:30: OK, I am tired, time to go lay in bed.

11:59: Still watching TV in bed though..  Another day gone!

08/15/2013:

5:30: Awaken for another Lovenox shot and vitals.  The lovenox shots are becoming a pain.  I have to feel around my belly to find the next spot.  There are hard spots/bruises on my belly like crazy from the effects that the lovenox has.  If I pick a bad spot, the shot will not stop bleeding afterwards from hitting a bruise/ball of blood, blah…

5:50: Back to sleep!

10:00: I am up!  Right onto the computer I hop.  Checking emails, the status of the hard drive being shipped to my client, and other packages.

11:00:  I have my wife drop me off at the office.

11:15: Back to work..

12:45: My package arrives.  I unbox it and set it up.   Can’t completely use it until I get a few more parts to complete install.

1:30: Back to some work…

6:00: My wife picks me up from the office and brings me back home.

6:30: Lovenox shot time…

7:00: My dad and I head Uptown to resolve that hard drive issue on that computer.

7:30: We get there, I put on my mask, and head inside.  I swap out the hard drives, configure the computer back to its domain settings, install the XRay software and swap computers.  I undo the settings on the temp computer while finalizing the settings on the new computer.

9:30: We are done and home we head…

9:50: We get home, pizza for supper.  I am getting tired of this no meat thing…

10:15: Pills and vitals.

10:30: Bath/shower.

11:45: Out, and into bed…  No TV tonight I am exhausted.

11:59: Another day gone. ZzZzZzZzZzZz

08/14/2013:

5:30: Lovenox shot and vitals, blah…5:45: ZzZzZzZzZz.

10:00: I am up, and its raining outside, just need to wait for it to slack up some before heading over to the office with my wife.  I check on the status of a few different shipments.

11:30: Its slacked off enough, so my wife and I head over to my office.

12:00: My wife and I go to Lowe’s, I need to fix up a few electrical parts to create a dual outlet junction box.

12:30: My wife and I check out and head back to the office.

12:45: At the office, I check on a few emails and take care of a few things.

1:30: I start wiring up the junction box in the shop.

1:50: My wife has a hair appointment, so she has to leave, so just me at the office.

2:15: Done with the junction box, it can support two circuits so got some additional power now 🙂

2:30: Back to my computer following up on a few things, and taking care of some more administrative work.

4:30: I forgot my pills, so my mom brings them to me and drops them off.

5:00: My dad shows up, and my mom heads home.  I am waiting on a package to arrive, and my dad is my ride home, so we wait.  While we are waiting I clean up the floor around my desk, and then he vacuums the entire office for me.

7:00: Still no package, oh well, we are going to head home, they’ll probably deliver it tomorrow.

7:30: Lovenox shot, oh joy…

7:45: Supper.

8:15: Just relaxing in the chair, watching TV.

9:30: Bath/Shower time.  I’ll be happy to get back to the real shower stall, just a little longer to build up my immune system a little more…

11:00: Into bed, vitals, pills, and just relaxing watching tv…

11:59: ZzZzZz, another day gone!

08/13/2013:

5:30: I am awaken like usual for my vitals and lovenox shot.

5:45: ZzZzZz

9:30: I am awaken by a phone call, sure enough it is the client whose computer that I was working on last night that didn’t reboot.  The computer is connected to an XRay machine, and it will not boot and the Startup Repair is claiming that the disk has errors that is preventing it from starting.  I troubleshoot with them, but the computer will not come boot.

10:15: I come up with the plan to use an older less used computer as their backup XRay machine.  I remote into that computer and install the XRay software, map it to the server, and its ready to use.  I call the clinic back and have them swap the computers.  I then finish up the installation with the image capturing device driver installation.  We do not get the device ready to shoot xrays.  I ask them to swap the cords and plug it into a different USB port on the computer, they do this, and then the computer says its ready to shoot XRays.  They shoot a test XRay and everything is good to go for now.  The computer is slower, but they still are able to take XRays today, and possibly tomorrow to Dell can ship me out a Hard Drive since its under warranty.

11:00: I talk to Dell, they want me to run diagnostics on the computer.  However, I am not driving yet, and stuck at home alone today.  I call the clinic and ask them to have someone call me when one of their staff has some free time to troubleshoot the Dell computer.

12:30: I get a call back from the clinic, we start running test, and right away it shows that the hard drive is failing and that it should be replaced immediately.  I have them give me all the error codes, beeps, and words on the screen for me to relay to Dell.  I then email the technician that I talked to earlier, but then jump on another chat to make sure that the part is shipped out as soon as possible.  I give them all the info and they process the warranty return.

2:00: All that’s sorted out.  Now just doing some research on a few things.

5:30: Lovenox time, oh joy, another shot!

6:00: Supper time!

6:30: In the Lazyboy, just taking it easy and watching some TV.

9:00: Bath/Shower time…

10:00: In bed with the laptop and watching TV.  Vitals, Pills…

11:59: ZzZzZzZzZzZz.. I am out!  Another day, yep, gone!

08/12/2013:

1:00: ZzZzZzZzZ

5:30: Vitals and Lovenox shot time…

7:50: A client’s phone call wakes me up.  They have malware on their computer preventing them from being able to do anything.  I remote into the computer, reboot it into safemode, and go to work on it with a few scans.  While it is scanning I go put on my Lidocaine cream on my port and cover it with saran wrap as usual so it doesn’t get all over my shirt.

8:45: Done with the scan, and out the door my wife and I are, heading to Tulane.

9:05: At Tulane.

9:10: Checking in, and sitting in the waiting room.

10:10: I am taken to the infusion center.

10:30: The nurse accesses my port, flushes a few times, and then has no times pulling my blood from my port.

10:45: I get a call from a client who got a new printer and needs me to setup the drivers and map it to the other computers on the network.  I pull out my laptop and add the printer, then I connect to two of the computers on site and add the network printer as they print mainly to that printer.  I will connect to the remaining computers tonight and add the printer to them.

11:30: The blood results are back, everything is good, I don’t need replacements or anything, so I can head on out.

11:45: My wife and I are back in the car, heading home to pick up a bite to eat, and then we’ll head over to my office.

12:00: Home my wife and I are, I grab a pop tart as I am not really too hungry. My wife eats a sandwich.

12:15: Back in the car over to the office my wife and I head.

12:30: We are at the office.  First time I have been here to actually do some work in over 2 months.

1:00: I move a few things around straightening up per say as I haven’t been here and my wife and business partner have been taking care of things in the shop.

2:00: Sitting in my chair, catching up on some administrative work…

6:30: We are done here at the office, time for my wife and I to head home…

7:00: Lovenox shot time, oh joy…

7:30: TV time, but also working on clients issues here and there…

10:00: Vitals and pills.

10:30: I connect to the remaining computers to add the printer, however, one of the computers do not come back up, I guess I’ll see what this brings tomorrow as I do not see the computer come back up, and no one is there this late tonight to troubleshoot the computer with me.

11:30: Done with the computer for tonight, time to go lay in bed.

11:45: Just watching Tv…

11:59: ZzZzZzZzZzZz another day gone and fast asleep!

08/11/2013:

12:30: Done gaming for tonight.

1:00: In bed, watching TV.

3:00: ZzZzZzZzZzZzZz…..

6:00: I am awakened for another lovenox shot, blah, oh and vitals…

12:00: Awake I am…

12:15: Peanut Butter Chocolate Pop Tarts for breakfast, yummy…

1:00: I go to sit outside in the sun for a little bit and get my Vitamin D with my dad and we just talk, looking at all the lizards all over the place, population explosion…

1:30: Ok, now the sun came out from under the clouds and its too hot for me to stay outside.

2:00: On my computer I am, following up on a few things.

3:00: It is storming outside, power flickers a few times.

3:15: I go back to those 2 computers and put them back together, I’ll bring them over to my office later tonight.

4:00: I see a server go down, it seems that I had a brute force attack on a client’s webpage of a number of different computers trying to gain access by using various username and password combinations.

5:00: I figure out how to stop it, rename the login page from the default to something else, I do that and the server load goes from 45% down to nothing.

6:00: My wonderful Lovenox shot…

8:00: My dad and I head over to the office to bring back those two computers and any other items that I brought from the office to work on them and other things since I hope to be working out of the office for such things and not have 4 or 5 client computers around my house working on them.

8:30: My mom shows up to do a bit of cleaning.  Just wiping down my work areas with disinfectant one more time.  I can’t touch the stuff as the smell of any disinfectant now simply makes me want to throw up.  I am tired of the smell after smelling it at the hospital and through all my chemos in the past.  Cleaning and the wonderful smell of clean is not my thing!

9:00: We are out of there, I’ll be back tomorrow 😛

9:15: Home I am.

9:30: Bath/Shower time…

11:00: Out, all fresh and clean.  Time for vitals and meds, and in bed I am.

11:59: Laying in bed, watching TV.

08/10/2013:

12:30: Out the bath/shower and into my room for vitals…

1:00: ZzZzZzZzZzZzZzZzZz

10:00: My sister wakes me up with some doughnut holes.  Just regular glazed is my favorite!

11:45: My dad and I head over to my office to put together a new chair that I had ordered when I got out of the hospital.  The other chair had no cushion left to it.  This one is made for 8-10 hours a day with a weight limit up to 500lbs, so I should be good to go.

12:45: My dad are done with the chair, and heading back to the house.

1:00: Back home.  My mom cooked some pizza so I take a slice and relax in the Lazyboy.

2:00: Back to working on two stubborn computers.  I am figuring either motherboard problems or hard drive problems at this point, but with all the troubleshooting I have been doing, Motherboard problems…

3:00: Back to my computer for some research.

4:00: My dad and I head back to my office to pick up a few things to help me with the two computers I am working on.

4:30: Back home we are.

5:00: I eat some more gumbo from last night.

5:00: Back to tackling those two computer.

7:00: From what it seems both of those computers are dead, I am done with them.  Definitely motherboard issues.  I will confirm that this week when I put the hard drives in a computer at the office and boot them up on those computers and see everything run without any issues.

8:00: Gaming time…  COD2 for me, nice and simple!

11:59: Yup still gaming…